DONATUS

Form: Aelius.

A Roman scholar and rhetorician of about the middle of the 4th century [smallCaps>A.D., and tutor of Jerome. He was the author of a Latin grammar (Ars Grammatica) in three books. This was much commented on by Servius, Pompeius, and others. His Ars Minor,, or short catechism on the eight parts of speech, survived long after the Middle Ages as the chief manual for elementary instruction. These works survive in their original form. He also wrote a valuable commentary on Terence, which we possess in an imperfect shape, the notes on the Heauton Timorumenos being lost, and not in its original form. [He was also the author of a lost commentary on Vergil, which is often alluded to contemptuously by Servius.]